We went rattling off across the empty plain, followed by the armed escort. The sun high overhead bleached all the colour from the sand; the only contrast was the brilliant blue of the sky above. The breeze of our movement felt like the blast from an oven.
Schmidt started reminiscing about the last time he and Larry had met, at a conference on preservation and restoration. From the stained glass of medieval cathedrals to the stones of the Colosseum, scarcely a monument in the world has escaped damage from fire and flood, pollution and traffic, and the mere presence of human beings. Larry, of course, was primarily interested in Egyptian monuments and he became more animated than I had ever seen him, his voice deepening with distress as he described the devastation of the tombs.
‘The plaster, and the paintings on it, are literally falling off the walls. There has been more damage done in the last twenty years than in the preceding four thousand.’
‘But it is a wonderful thing you have done,’ Schmidt exclaimed. ‘To restore the tomb paintings of Tetisheri – ’
‘It’s only one out of many.’
‘There is also Nefertari’s tomb.’
‘The Getty people have done a splendid job with Nefertari,’ Larry agreed. ‘But if the tomb is reopened, the same thing will happen again.’
‘Then you support the idea of constructing reproductions?’ Schmidt asked. ‘For the tourists to visit, while the original tombs are open only to scholars?’
‘Yes.’ Larry caught my eye and smiled deprecatingly. ‘It does smack of elitism, doesn’t it? Don’t admit anyone – except me!’ He shifted uncomfortably; the seats were hard. ‘It’s too late for the Amarna tombs,’ he went on regretfully. ‘There’s very little left. I admit the Egyptian government needs tourist dollars, but I regret what they’ve done here to make it easier for visitors to reach the royal tomb. Until they made this road through the wadi, it was a long, hard, three-mile walk.’
‘I hear that the Japanese are talking of building lifts to the nobles’ tombs,’ Schmidt said.
They sighed in unison.
We had crossed the plain and entered a canyon or wadi that cut through the enclosing cliffs. They gave little shade; the sun was still high and the centre of the road baked in the bright light. Seeing me swallow, Schmidt unscrewed his canteen and offered it to me. Gratefully I accepted it. I took a drink and gagged.
‘Beer!’
‘Aber natürlich,’ said Schmidt, retrieving the canteen. ‘Herr Blenkiron?’
Larry refused the offer. So did Ed.
There was an ice chest on the trailer. When it stopped we had drinks all round before starting on the last part of the trip. It was an easy walk along a narrower side wadi up to the entrance to the tomb. A short flight of steep steps led down. I could see a glow of light from the passage beyond, but it wasn’t exactly dazzling.
Feisal gathered us around him and began lecturing. Schmidt wasn’t looking at Feisal. He was looking at me. He had taken off his sunglasses preparatory to descending into the dimly lighted passageway, and his beady little eyes were worried.
Schmidt was one of the few people in the world who knew about the time I had been buried alive under a castle in Bavaria. That may sound melodramatic, but it’s the literal truth; the tunnel had been blocked by an earth-fall and I had to dig my way out. I had no tools, only my bare hands, no light except a few matches, and, towards the end, not much in the way of oxygen. I have avoided dark, confined underground places since. Even Schmidt didn’t know that I still dream about it from time to time.
John knew. He knew because I had had the dream once when he was with me. He had held me while I choked and gurgled and made a damned fool of myself, clinging to him and pleading incoherently for light and for air. After I calmed down he had insisted I tell him the whole story. It would help exorcise the demons, he had said . . .
He was staring at me too. Over Mary’s head his eyes, narrowed and unblinking, met mine. I looked away.
The others started down the stairs and Schmidt edged closer to me. ‘Vicky, perhaps you should not do this.’
He was under the impression that he was whispering. Several heads turned, and Feisal came back to me. ‘Is there a problem, Vicky?’
‘No problem,’ I said curtly.
Nor was there, not really. What bothered me was not claustrophobia in the classic sense: abnormal fear of narrow, confined spaces. As long as there was light and there were other people around, I was okay.
At least that’s what I told myself.
It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. There were lights at frequent intervals and modern stairs or ramps over the rougher parts of the ancient passageways. And people. Schmidt stuck close, bless his thoughtful little heart.
Egyptian tomb architecture has never been one of my passions in life. Sweet set out to prove it was one of his; he latched on to Perry, despite the latter’s attempts to get away so he could come and tell me all about everything, and began babbling about changes in axis and angles of descent and comparisons with earlier and later types. He’d certainly done his homework. Alice and Schmidt were arguing about Minoan influences on Amarna art. Feisal’s voice echoed weirdly as he mentioned points of interest.
There weren’t many. The walls of the sloping passage were rough and unadorned. It had an eerie impressiveness, though, and by the time we reached the burial chamber everyone except Feisal had fallen silent.
There wasn’t much to see there either, only a few scratches on the rough walls; but when Feisal pointed them out and described the scenes of which they were the scanty remainder, he managed to suggest something of the beauty that had once been there: depictions of the king and queen offering to the sole god they had worshipped, the sun disk with rays ending in small, caressing human hands; mourners, their garments rent and their hands raised in ceremonial grieving. Even with his eloquence I couldn’t make out the details of the figure on the funeral bier. Feisal claimed these details proved it was a female figure.
‘But I thought this was the king’s tomb,’ the Frau from Hamburg said.
‘We don’t know the identity of the woman on the bier,’ Feisal answered. ‘It has been suggested she was – ’
‘Nefertiti!’ Louisa swooped down on him, waving her arms. Her veils billowed like bat wings. ‘Yes, I feel it. I feel her presence.’
She flopped down onto the floor and sat cross-legged, crooning to herself.
The others studied her in mingled disgust and embarrassment. Sweet muttered something derogatory about New Age mystics and Blenkiron’s face was rigid with distaste.
‘Odd how so many people go soggy over Nefertiti,’ murmured a satirical voice. Hands in his pockets, hair shining in the light of the bulb overhead, John glanced at me and smiled.
Feisal was the only other member of the party who was more amused than embarrassed. He had probably run into this sort of thing before. ‘It is not Nefertiti. She appears elsewhere in the same scene. One authority has suggested that this was her tomb, not that of her husband, but that viewpoint is not generally accepted. The unfinished suite of rooms leading off the downward passage may have been intended for her burial. We will visit them later, but first you will want to see the best preserved portion of the tomb, which was designed for one of the royal princesses.’